


Through Weather and Woes or Just Plain Bastards

by Chromat1cs



Series: Basingstoke Diaries [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Business Trip, Editor!Remus, I didn't actually write out the Russian, Lazy Mornings, M/M, MWPP, Marauders' Era, Mechanic!Sirius, Post Hogwarts AU, Sappy Ending, You Have Been Warned, arguing in Russian, i don't speak russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 16:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromat1cs/pseuds/Chromat1cs
Summary: Sirius tags along on a business trip that turns out very grey indeed, and amidst all the rain and the rabble he can't shake the feeling like lingering raindrops in his collar that everything has shifted; just a bit.





	Through Weather and Woes or Just Plain Bastards

**Author's Note:**

> Ah! Ahh! So glad to be putting up another piece of this series! IRL has gotten very busy, the good kind, which has hamstrung some of the time I usually would mete out to working on multiple ideas at once--but I'm still here, no worries.
> 
> Impetus behind his one: the east coast has been drenched with rain, off and on, for almost 2 weeks. And also I wanted to bring this little device to pass that you'll see soon :) Thank you again for reading! Glad to have you here, or back, or just passing through <3

The rain is coming in sheets. This rickety little inn groans with every passing gust of wind like it might take off in a flight of flimsy plaster and bile-colored wallpaper with the very next gust, and Sirius peers warily out the single window that might as well be a mail slot as he wrings his hair out and begins to peel his jacket from his shoulders. 

"One would think 'a beachside escape' would be less...this," Sirius mutters as he takes stock of the tiny room. A single bed, just barely wide enough for two, adorned with a worn cornflower-colored quilt; bathroom door slightly weather warped at its edges, bowing out nearly an inch at the top of its frame; wicker chair, more frayed than not; single bed stand with a fairly ugly lamp squat atop it; simple little desk with an uneven leg, upon which Remus is currently hoisting his suitcase after charming it dry. 

"It's nearly December," Remus deadpans without looking at Sirius, unclasping the little trunk. "Besides, when the publisher pays for the entire stay, it might as well be the bloody Ritz. I'm loathe to shell out for anything when the majority of my time here will be spent on their own errands." He swings open the closet to his right, sneezing when a cloud of dust comes with it; Sirius holds in a laugh. The withering sigh that spins out from Remus is more colorful than any curse he could have chosen before he sets to hanging up a few pairs of trousers and some crisp, simple buttoned shirts and sweaters within. 

For the first time, Sirius has accompanied Remus on a business trip. 

The summons from Remus’ publishing house for a battery of meetings at their headquarters in the middle of northeastern nowhere had fallen conveniently, or rather _in_ conveniently for preexisting monthly getaway plans, on the week of the new moon. Sirius was, grudgingly but with measured grace, willing to take the loss of a few days in their new favorite cottage escape and settle for writing letters as they always did in any interims of departure, but Remus had insisted he wanted to balloon the _All Expense Paid_ part of the foray as much as he could. 

_What better way to stick a bit of thumb in their eye than to bring you with me? You don't have to tag along everywhere if you don’t want to, just be in the town with me, Explore, sleep, whatever you care._ Remus' eyes had been so full of vengeful mischief for the job he loves to harp on almost as much as he loves the work itself, and so Sirius had to laugh before accepting.

_What have I become, your kept woman?_ He had kissed Remus squarely before the responding joke could formulate on his mouth. _Of course I'll come with._

"Remind me again what to expect from the crust of Lincolnshire?" Sirius hums now, steadily removing his rain-soaked clothes and charming them clean and dry before folding them into a haphazard pile on the bed. 

"You're on your own to poke around, I'll be choked with books and cobbled fucking Russian translations for five days." Remus shakes his hair out with a sniff and shuts his suitcase again once his few days' ration of clothing is hung in fashionable rows before him. "Should I demand field reports of your adventures?"

Sirius snorts, pulling a fresh jumper from his own piles of clothes in a sleek tan case he'd lain by his feet. He rucks it up over his elbows and smirks at Remus before pulling it over his head, inwardly grateful for its warmth. "Careful. As sad as our temporary digs are, this is still a vacation to me."

Remus raises an eyebrow in wordless challenge, finally removing his sodden raincoat to hang on the shitty little coat tree by the entry door. He spells himself dry in the same motion and slides his shoes off in finality before facing Sirius again; Sirius' heart swells marginally with affection. The gorgeous clarity in those green eyes when Remus is on the zenith of a lunar cycle is better than anything in the entire galaxy. 

"What?" Remus says around a chuckle, his lips twitching with amused wariness. Sirius heaves a theatrical sigh, tying his hair up messily as he moseys around the foot of the bed to face Remus.

"Just enjoying the view," Sirius says with airy nonchalance, and his hands wend around Remus' hips to pull them close. Remus smiles and hangs his own arms in a sling around the back of Sirius' neck, where he touches gently at the wisps of dark hair left straggling there. Sirius wishes he had any sort of talent for telepathy as his brain shouts of its own volition _Merlin burning, I love you._

"You can't possibly be such a disastrous flirt to mean me," Remus said, heavy with his brand of sarcasm that lights the pleased embers in Sirius' belly to a boil. Sirius presses a lazy kiss to the side of Remus' neck and takes one step toward the bed, Remus mirroring him backwards. 

"Of course not," Sirius mumbles against the warm skin, kissing him there again before continuing, "the flawless creature in my arms right now is nothing compared to the rolling and towering blandness raining down outside our window right now—can we _actually_ call that a window? Legally?"

Now eased down to his back on the mattress—which gives with a slight groaning squeak, to equal inward parts hilarious delight and chagrin from Sirius—, Remus tips his head back to look at the window upside-down without letting go of Sirius. 

"Porthole," he says matter-of-factly, and the laughter in his expression as he looks back to Sirius is better than any ounce of sun breaking through the sludge of clouds outside. Sirius knows he's hardly half the wordsmith Remus is, so he settles for humming “A _porthole,”_ pouring a languid kiss to Remus' mouth, and relaxing into the familiarity of coiling themselves together in the quiet unfamiliarity of rainy, off-season Skegness. 

—

The weather barely lets up in the slightest by morning, if only less wind and more grey muddling the horizon line that rakes out over the ocean. It's probably a nice place in the summer, but leave it to a textbook publisher to misjudge timing a trip at even its most basic level. Sirius had dreamt of deep water and gales shaped like wolves; coming up through the leagues of sleep now might have given him the bends without the grounding vision of Remus pulling a shirt over his shoulders silently in front of him.

"I've got a breakfast meeting in an hour," Remus says over his shoulder as Sirius stirs with a broad yawn, "and then I'm locked in revision discussion from eleven through five nearly every day."

"Do they deign to feed you?" Sirius asks, his voice muzzy with sleep as he rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. Sitting up on his elbows, still tangled in thin sheets that did practically nothing against the cold and called for a sloppy net of warming charms in the middle of the night, he watches with lazy satisfaction as Remus continues to dress at the foot of the bed.

"Probably tea and some sandwiches. We won't starve, but we don't have to like it," Remus sighs. He finishes buttoning up his plain white shirt and pulls a sweater over top to layer against the season. 

"Do you want me to bring you something instead?" Sirius asks as he watches Remus roll his cuffs and sleeves to the elbow with exacting efficiency. He absorbs the adoring smile Remus gives him like ambrosia.

"Thank you, Pads, but I'll survive a couple afternoons of boredom. No need to hamstring your own holiday."

"Oh, yes, because there's _so_ much to do in a rainy port town in _November,"_ Sirius snorts, pushing himself into a full sit amid his nest of sheets. Remus twists to face him, face etched with slight apologetic pain. 

"Sorry," he says for the twelfth time since last Sunday, and Sirius leans forward to silence the worry on Remus' mouth with a slow morning-hazed kiss. He tastes of subtle cinnamon toothpaste and a light note of aftershave.

"If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times over," Sirius murmurs against Remus' lips, "we could be in the middle of the bloody Sahara and as long as I get to sleep next to you, I'm as happy as they come."

"Too kind to me," Remus whispers in affectionate response, twinning the invisible gravitational tug that Sirius feels toward him as he coaxes out another kiss. Sirius chuckles low when Remus keeps easing forward, pressing him back with the prolonged kiss until Sirius is lying down again. A growl of thunder rolls past outside, and Sirius closes his eyes to feel Remus' warm hands clasp around his sides. 

"No such limit," Sirius hums, and he hisses in a surprised breath through clenched teeth when the sounding rasp of moving sheets translates directly into Remus' fingers wandering down to his thighs beneath the covers. Through a soft, encouraging groan Sirius opens one eye to look teasingly down at Remus where he's planting a kiss at the inner curve of Sirius' collar bone. "Excuse you, 'Breakfast meeting’?”

"There's a reason I woke up ahead of schedule," Remus murmurs simply, winking as he slides slowly to a kneel on the floor at the edge of the bed and pulls Sirius' waist a bit of the way with him in gentle hands. Sirius' veins alight in silver fire, quicker than Bluebell and fuller, surely, than a blast of Incendio when he feels Remus' mouthing nip on the inside of his thigh and the heat of his hand wrapped softly around his morning length. Remus thumbs lovingly at its head and rests his chin on Sirius' left leg, looking all too content and proud of himself as Sirius gazes down at him. "Besides, I'll need to manufacture some daydreams to keep myself from dying of boredom, won't I?"

"Have a fucking feel day, love," Sirius replies, his voice gruff with the edges of potent arousal, and imagines for a handful of blissful minutes that this sordid little room is a resort in Morocco and Remus doesn't have to leave the ardor he fosters so expertly any time soon at all. 

—

He's packed his sunglasses, but the absolutely unencessity of them is almost hilarious to Sirius. The rain has continued all the way through a lonely lunch, straight up to the rime of teatime where Sirius sits in a small cafe dripping faintly at his edges. A steaming cup of welcome darjeeling sits waiting in front of him, and Sirius looks about surreptitiously to gauge whether a drying charm would be completely out of the question or not. The quiet little woman behind the sparse pastry counter is decidedly not a witch, and Sirius wishes achingly for a shot of Firewhiskey to tip into his tea as he puts on a wan little smile to dispel the owner's attentions. He raises the cup to his lips and sups deeply, savoring the way it nearly scalds his tongue. 

Sirius moves to draw his cigarette case from the inside of his jacket, but apparently Muggles still possess a measure of Divination talent as the woman behind the cafe speaks up with a soft, creaky voice. 

"Sorry, dear, no smoking indoors. It bungles up the atmosphere."

"Apologies," Sirius replies shortly, re-pocketing the case and taking a long sip of his tea. He looks up at the woman again, who had begun knitting sometime between his arrival and now. "I know it's the off-season, but is there anything I could while a few afternoons here with?"

The woman looks sagely toward the windows behind Sirius, scrimmed over with rain and the weak light of heavy clouds, and squints. "We've a pier," she suggests, "all the resorts are shuttered up 'til March but the beach is still worth a walk if it quits raining for a few hours. There are some lovely gardens, a couple churches if you're inclined. If you go to the pier though, you watch out for some of those buildings. Moldering and falling apart on their own, they are. Heard talk of tearing down the old pierhead and its theatre."

"I'll keep all that in mind, thanks," Sirius says, gifting the tiny woman his most charming smile. _Remus wasn't being dramatic when he said there really was nothing to do, shit._ With a light and inaudible sigh, Sirius turns to watch the weather blustering past the window with the rest of his teacup clasped in his hand. The warmth he could sap from it is tempting, and so he wills a short jot of warming magic through his skin beneath the dampness of his clothes to dry himself silently. The eaves creak a bit, the shop owner's knitting needles click like a talkative little creature, and Sirius hopes Remus is imagining the same quiet afternoon they could be having alone in Basingstoke right now under different circumstances. 

—

The next day is much of the same; wake silently on the coattails of Remus' own stirring, watch him get dressed, slough off randy dregs of his tension and Sirius' own readiness to free him of it, and then steal an extra hour or so of sleep before getting up to mill around the town.

Sirius spent the previous rest of yesterday winding his soggy way through residential streets, a hibernating beach town storing its energy for summer. He had resolved to at least wait for a break in the rain to trek down to the pier as per the suggestion of the woman at the tea shop, and he's glad to find this morning as he exits their little inn that the ubiquitous grey tint comes without a downpour. He rucks his scarf up higher on his neck and sets to walking toward the hazy stretch of dock and sand that looms like a skeleton in the distance to the east. 

The cold leeches into Sirius' bones like a hex, sucking past his warming charms on curious fingers. A steady shiver has set to a knot between his shoulders by the time he reaches the base of the pier, and he casts his eyes around the empty place for somewhere to duck away from the wind for a bit. Nothing but a swath of storefronts, many of them closed or looking quite near it—a bookstore, a jeweler’s, a pottery shop, an old barbershop. Sirius keeps walking, if only to prevent his veins from freezing completely.

Remus is trapped in more meetings today, and if yesterday's description of _Sisyphusian bullshit made up of talking in fucking circles_ holds true for the next four days, their frustration-warding sex in the morning is going to have to get a hell of a lot more intense as the week goes on. Remus loves his work, but he truly despises some of the authors. Especially the author this visit concerns. He was called in initially to just run translations from Russian to English on his last Defense Against the Dark Arts texts, but eventually he took on their editing and revision work as well after the previous editor resigned from the task. Apparently the author’s inability to receive criticism with any sort of grace has made it increasingly evident why the last editor resigned, but Remus Lupin doesn't walk away from anything without finishing it—despite Sirius’ gentle encouragement to _Pass the insufferable bastard off to the next one, his unprofessionalism isn’t your problem._ But the author has continued to write more books that sell increasingly well, so Remus has grudgingly continued to do the work. He’s is glad for the coin, but Sirius has begun to wonder if the stress is truly worth it. 

Sirius stops his thought-clogged walking in front of the pierhead, a salt-stained hulk of wood that smells faintly of ashes wafting out to him from within. The paint on the outside is discolored with age, holed with rounded little windows that would have been perfectly cheerful-looking were it not for several panes of broken glass disjointing them. The mouth of entrance into the belly of the theatre itself isn't sanctioned off, the overall disrepair of the structure doing enough on its own to dissuade curious visitors. But Sirius Black has more than enough experience climbing on and around things that he shouldn't, so he legs up the stairs easily and ducks into the collapsing theatre.

The inside isn't much different, but the hiss of the ocean just outside and below is muffled down to a foggy roar by old dampened walls. Sirius devours the strange cove of suspended history with bright eyes as he hunts for a place to sit, bits of it illuminated to stark nakedness by weak and stormy light knifing down gently through holes in the ceiling. Dilapidated arcade fronts from the turn of the century; a windowed ceiling thick with sea foam grime where the glass and wood hasn't buckled in on itself; falls of beams making an urban forest of splintered wood in the yawning space around him. Most interesting, though, are the flocks of starlings that have picked this ancient husk as a nest. 

Clouds of them are perched across the mounds of wood and dirt, qorking with muttering little cries and trills like an alien language. Sirius finds a beam fallen across the warped floor that isn’t too mealy or covered with dry bird shit, so he sits and watches the strange little zoo as he lights a cigarette to nurse in his silence.

Sirius thinks long and lightly about what led him to this point, here and now, the vague striations of time that wended themselves just so in their fabric of happenstance to place him in a hauntingly lovely old pierhead on his own in an unseasonably cold November 1983. He enjoys backtracking stretches of his train of thought, always has, and recalls fondly a late afternoon toward the end of the summer. It had been storming two days straight after the moon in August, and Remus was battling the worst illness he'd had since year four. 

_I'm at your beck and call, my sweet,_ Sirius had said as he brought tea to Remus in bed, all the cheekiness inherent in the words not quite making it down to the worry that had made his hands shake slightly.

_Tables turned,_ was all Remus replied simply with a raw throat fogged by congestion and dehydration—his fever hadn’t broken all day. He had taken Sirius' hand then, kissed his knuckles with chapped lips that still felt like petals from Elysium, and Sirius had felt a surge like churning waves at that kiss, its frailty lancing to his core as if it were permafrost. He had nearly dropped the tea in the shuddering wash of clarity: for most of his life Sirius had insisted that Remus was his be-all and end-all, but that moment had been when the reality of it hit him like a charging hippogriff. If he ever had to keep existing without Remus Lupin, Sirius would fail. The urge to throw his arms around Remus, tea tray and all, was hard to swallow as he watched the man bite carefully into a biscuit.

_I love you, Moony,_ Sirius had blurted, fully aware of the jarring swaths of worry that had clouded his eyes. He could feel them like paint stains and didn't know he had started crying until Remus' own eyes went wide and he reached out to gather Sirius close. 

_It's just a flu, Sirius,_ Remus insisted again with tenderness, for perhaps the ninth time over. His fingers had flexed on Sirius' shoulders with frail affection as if in example.

_I know, just—let me get this one out, I don't know where this is coming from,_ Sirius had choked out, still holding the tea tray with one hand but clinging to the fragrant fabric of Remus' jumper like a lifeline with the other. 

Since then, Sirius had noticed a new kind of gentleness in the way Remus examined him from the corners of his eyes. It culminated in him suggesting that Sirius could come with to Skegness this week, not promising a good time but offering the certainty closeness for the entire time. Solidity. Peace. In the heart of it now, Sirius can think of few things he needs more to feed his spirit.

He's so in love he can hardly believe it sometimes, and he laughs faintly at his own ridiculousness as he draws again on his cigarette—charms the ash to dissipate on its own instead of falling to all this dead, dry wood. One of the starlings decides to flutter down and alight beside him, hopping staccato along the beam seat with its head cocked sideways to eye Sirius with avian askance.

"Well hallo, sir," Sirius says, crooking a finger at the little bird only to make it hop back a couple steps. Sirius draws on his cigarette again, smiling to himself, as the starling watches him with several little twitches of its head. It warbles a cluttered little boggle of song before diving its beak under its wing to preen in fussy fits and starts. 

"Oh, I know. I'm a todger, aren't I?" Sirius continues through an exhale, watching the feathers ruffle and fan with the tiny creature's work. "But you would understand if you met him. He’s a bloody force of nature.”

The starling keeps preening, and Sirius snorts to himself when it pops into his mind that Remus would find this juxtaposition of dark-haired-and-feathered symmetry hilarious—squabbly creatures taken with vanity, the both of them. Reaching the end of his cigarette, Sirius idly transfigures it into a small paper caterpillar to set gently on the wood between him and the starling. The bird watches his hand warily before noticing the presence of the charmed little bug and snapping it up in its pointed beak with immediacy. He takes an extra hop towards Sirius and twists his head to stare him down in what might have been defiance. Sirius stares back.

"Did you eat that?" He marvels, furrowing his eyebrows. The bird doesn't respond. _Of course it won't talk back, you idiot, it's a bird—_ but it fluffs its back and tail feathers with a terse, whirring shake. Sirius leans back and sighs. "Suit yourself, mate."

Amid the fluttering of the rows upon rows of starlings, Sirius lets his preoccupations shut off for a little while and just coast in the present like the tide swelling in and out beyond the walls of the theatre around him. He lets time pass without marking it. It passes in Skegness, he's decided, like a mouthful of marshmallows—awkwardly, but not with enough discomfort to really be anything but mildly strange. He muses for a while on the idea that there must be old magic left ebbing in the belly of the place, through the roots and soil like rattling breath that has been here since the beginning of the earth and will continue long after bulk of them are gone...or some bollocks like that. It’s an old town.

A sound like a collective shuffling off of dust sounds from one of the high rafters, and Sirius looks up just in time to see a cloud of starlings stream up and out of the larger holes in the roof. He watches, rapt, as rest of the birds follow in a steady stream of exit—for food, bed, fun, he wouldn't have known even if he was one himself. The trills of hundreds of birdcalls rises like a tuning symphony in the churning ranks of feathers and beaks, swelling like a laden skein of sound, and then as soon as it had erupted it’s gone. Left in the silence of the old theatre, Sirius makes a hefty mental note to tell Remus about the secret marvel of the pierhead starlings.

An obstinate little tweet barks out from Sirius' left, and he looks down with surprise to see his sitting companion staring up at him with those beady, inquisitive eyes. Sirius gestures invitingly to the hole in the ceiling through which the creature's brethren just left. 

"Well? If you don't hurry I think you might miss tea," Sirius says, just as he realizes he's been using with the starling the same tone of candor and jest he uses to speak to Harry. The bird twitches its head a couple times and hops to the end of the fall of wood the two unlikely companions are using as their perch with its wings spread marginally. It flaps the speckle-feathered appendages a couple times as if in warmup, and Sirius has to laugh again.

"Ta, don't get lost," he says as the starling launches itself toward the hole in the ceiling in a cluttered leap. When it clears the wood, vaulting itself into the sky and beyond to find the rest of its flock, Sirius leans back and stares at the moldering ceiling. He lights another cigarette and hunkers in for a bit more peaceful solitude. 

—

"Big shaggy dog made friends with a bird?" Remus says through a little chuckle that night, he and Sirius stretched out sideways on the bed facing one another with their chins propped up on their hands. Remus' sweater and tie are hung carefully back in the closet, but he's let his dress shirt fall open in hapless repose at the top few buttons beside Sirius' warmth and comfort.

"I didn't name him, I should have," Sirius replies, shifting himself onto his back and gesturing for Remus to come fill the space against his chest. "I could have had a conversation with him about car parts and the motorbike, would have been exactly like talking at you about them; noncommittal twittering sounds, fluffing feathers, the whole l— _bugger fuck,_ you minx!" Sirius dissolves into a laugh that eats up his last words when Remus digs a knuckle into his ribs in warning. He retaliates by rolling on top of Remus as the other man squawks with surprised protest— _bird indeed._ Once Sirius burrows a vengeful kiss into the long plane of Remus' neck, right along his favorite scar there, he pulls back to smile down at the disheveled green glower backlit with ardor.

"Careful, love, you might be sleeping on the floor tonight," Remus chides. Sirius lets an easy smile take over his lips, dipping himself down to press another kiss this time to the obstinate curve of Remus' lips. 

"Calling your bluff, Moons, you won't sacrifice the body heat," he murmurs.

"You think I won't do it?" Remus hums in return, adopting the same saucy haze to his words as he reaches his arms up to rest lazily on Sirius’ shoulders. "I've a recipe for warming charms that would let me sleep naked here. Wouldn't need you at all."

"Ohhh, I think you would _certainly_ need me there if you end up sleeping without pants on."

"I have solutions." Remus wraps a finger around a lock of Sirius' hair, examines it with feigned plainness as he muses on his ideas. "It would be just like any other of these blasted business trips, where I occupy myself for a few nights in your stead with my own hands. Or some spells. Or a pillow."

Sirius feels heat bloom madly in his pelvis as Remus smirks with satisfied knowing at his mark hitting home just as he intended. "Heavens, all this talk and so little action," Sirius growls, but it comes out tinged with an edge of desperation.

"I should say so," Remus replies simply, one eyebrow arched with the same haughty expectance seated on the slight pout of his mouth, which is all it takes for Sirius to dive down and catch him in a possessive kiss fraught with a cacophony of affection. Fumbling for the hasp of Remus’ trousers, scraping his teeth gently over Remus’ bottom lip, swallowing the ragged little stutter of eagerness that jumps from Remus’ throat, Sirius decides it’s turned out to be a fine day after all.

—

"Request," Remus says without preamble when Sirius shows signs of life the next morning. Still fogged with sweet-feeling torpor, Sirius grunts out an inquisitive sound. 

"I'd like to steal away some semblance of a holiday with you this week, even just a little. Could we get lunch today?" Remus watches Sirius with calm expectance as he slides a pair of trousers off their hanger and Sirius yawns widely. 

"'Course, love," Sirius says with a happy lilt, speaking strained through a stretch that makes the spaces between his ribs sigh in mute flexion. "Why do I feel like there's a caveat here?"

"Because there is. I'll need you to come to a meeting with me this morning, since I don't know how long it will go," Remus explains, his voice gruff around its edges with unconscious frustration as he picks a tie from the closet with a short little whipping tug at its end. "Unless you've discovered a place you'd rather wait for me? I'm more than happy to do either. Although you might not be, I know; this fucking author doesn't know his a—“

"I'll come with you, Rem, it will be fine," Sirius interrupts, smiling across the foot of the bed. "It will be fun to see you at work."

Remus snorts with weighted sarcasm. "Trust me, it's not sexy."

"Oh please," Sirius says loftily, feet to the carpet as he stands to rake his hair back in a loose knot and press a sturdy kiss to Remus' temple. "Everything you do is sexy."

"Does even just the thought of me pointing out minute syntax errors make you hard now?" Remus quips as Sirius makes his way to the little cupboard of a bathroom. "Do I need to start keeping a red quill in the bedside drawer?"

"Don't tempt me with a good time," Sirius says over his shoulder, smiling to himself as he shuts the door behind him. He draws water to wash his face (ice cold) and then shower (fucking frigid), and when he emerges into the bedroom a short stretch of minutes later shivering faintly and dripping, Remus is fully dressed and running his fingers through his short, unruly waves of hair. Sirius moves to take up his wand for a drying charm, but Remus beats him to the count with a spell that feels like a little caress of warm air. Sirius responds in kind by swatting Remus' hand out of his hair and fixing the fall of the soft curls into a slightly more tamed version of their everyday pell-mell; professional. 

"Do I have to look as put together as you?" Sirius asks, needlessly straightening the knot of Remus' tie.

"Seeing as you've brought with you an entire gradient palette of nothing but black jeans and shirts—“ Remus jerks his chin in he direction of Sirius' disheveled suitcase before kissing him on the nose. "No worries."

"Maybe I'll just go _nude—”_

"Inspiring, but no, Pads. The author would have a heart attack, and then I'd be out of a measure of work." Remus stifles a spasmodic little smile when Sirius looks over at him from buttoning a pair of jeans. Sirius raises an expectant eyebrow to invite the bawdy comment he knows that expression has covered, and Remus cracks the smile deeper. "Cocked over by your cock."

"Oh sod _off,_ that's so bad," Sirius groans, but he revels all the same at his core in the shine of Remus' laughter.

—

The rain starts again just as soon as the two of them duck under the threshold of this small branch of the publishing house. Remus removes his greatcoat in a neat drape across his forearm and twists his scarf overtop of, and Sirius takes an extra moment to re-tie the twist of his hair before shrugging off his own outerwear. 

"We're up on the fourth floor," Remus says as they walk toward a small bank of lifts, in a tone of voice one would only expect to hear when speaking of prison conditions. They enter the cramped little box, old with a vague sense of early-century filigree, and Sirius quiets the little quiver of nerves at his core when Remus rattles the metal cage shut over the industrial door to press the worn "4" button. The mechanism around them shudders to life before starting a steady grind upwards, and Sirius instinctively reaches down in a shot to grab Remus' hand. Remus smiles small himself, kissing Sirius' knuckles in gentle reassurance. 

"And yet you ride that motorbike like you're invincible—“

"That's a different sort of Muggle engineering," Sirius says immediately, gritting his teeth when the shaft around them groans like an old man as they meander past the freight doors stamped with "2" beyond the grate of the door cage. 

"Whatever you say, love," Remus replies. He sweeps a thumb over the back of Sirius' hand before breaking their hold and adjusting his tie unconsciously. "Either way, I would think many of them would shit if they knew about apparition."

"Sure as hell beats being spirited aloft in a fucking metal coffin," Sirius mutters. Remus only chuckles to himself as Sirius can feel the lift begin slowing down, holding the wall beside him with a death grip as they squeal and bump to a halt in front of the fourth floor. Remus unfastens and opens the lift grate as the freight doors open into this wing of the publishing house, and Sirius lets the other man lead the way as he lingers a few steps back to take a deep, stilling breath. He fucking hates tight spaces, especially ones that make it feel like his magic is liable to coil up in his guts like a bezoar. He's sure it's got something to do with the way they tend to remind him of the old New Forest cell Remus used to use for his moons. 

“ _Dobroe utro,_ Aleksei," Remus says just ahead of Sirius, extending a hand to a figure partially blocked from view standing in front of him. Sirius primes his ears as he takes the last few steps to even himself with the greeting, so dearly loving it when Remus says anything not-English. 

“Remus, z _dravstvujte_ ,” the unseen Aleksei replies with genial enough simplicity, a deep voice accenting Remus’ name like a heavy winter cloak. Sirius comes to a stop beside Remus, at the careful distance of Nothing But Flatmates, as the Russian wizard takes Remus' hand in a sturdy handshake. 

"This is a colleague of mine from Hogwarts, Sirius Black. Sirius, this is Aleksei Mesyats. He's the Defense professor at Durmstrang, we’re working currently on his latest text regarding Dark Creatures."

Sirius has taken the sturdy hand offered to him and shakes it solidly through Remus' introduction, bodily resisting the sparking instinct to crush the author's fingers while he fights to keep his face kind when Remus mentions in finality the topic if the book. _No wonder this is so fucking frustrating for him._ Aleksei's broad smile is toothy very much unlike Gilderoy Lockhart’s, toothy in a way that warns of the possession of terrifying amounts of strength and a deep well of knowledge with which to use them. Sirius hopes his eyes flash with a similar canine fervor. Aleksei is broad, clean-shaven, a personification of Slavic propaganda from the 1950s Sirius remembers seeing in Muggle Studies in year six. His white-blonde hair is cropped close and neat, and his clothing is all shades of slate and absolutely immaculate. 

"Are you in publishing as well, Mr. Black?" Aleksei asks when he and Sirius break ranks, moving towards the heavy wooden table at which Remus has already begun setting out his materials. Sirius feels a vague buzzing at the base of his spine he can identify as possessive protectiveness and bids it quiet for now. He covers the inner jostling with what he's mostly sure is a sunny grin.

"If I only I was so bright," he tosses out, draping his coat over the chair beside Remus and sitting at the end of the table on the outskirts of their business.

"Sirius is studying to be an Auror in London," Remus lies naturally, shuffling through a sheaf of papers and spelling out a bundle of quills in several different colors. "I told him it would be a fortuitous leg up on his upcoming Defense exam to hear some of your theories firsthand."

"Ah, well I hope he does not judge them on their unfinishing," Aleksei sighs, easing himself to a sit opposite Remus with his own ream of pages floating out before him with a wandless current and turning in a flutter to somewhere near the halfway point. "Have you been long studying for this exam, to need a leg up?"

Sirius chuckles with forced nicety; he does not like this man one inch, doesn't trust the dark near-black of his eyes or the little curl at the corner of his smirk that reminds him so deeply of the way Narcissa and Bellatrix would look at him every time they passed in the halls for an entire term after they caught him snogging another boy at the outset of fifth year. His stomach churns, pinned under this arctic fox-like stare, and he resists the urge to glance at Remus for mental reassurance. He refuses to give this man any more apparent fodder. 

"I took it once before and fell just short, my patronus gave out in the last round," he says as if it were just a mild inconvenience of a memory, dredging up scraps of Frank's old description of the exams. It hurts a bit like an aching muscle just behind his heart as he continues, "Slated to take it again soon, though, can't wait to see if, ah, anything in your book might help."

Remus passes him a copy of the manuscript wordlessly, all relaxed and business-like, but Sirius catches the tenseness in his shoulders like a metallic scent. He surmises through this thick web of white lies they're weaving that Aleksei would take far less that kindly to the idea that Sirius and Remus are on holiday together as something even just hazarding at the descriptor of Romantic. It would seem Sirius’ gut feeling about the reigned malice encoded behind the planes of the author’s face is correct. It makes him want to hit things.

Sirius settles for tossing out a wan smile in lieu of barking out a snide comment about Aleksei’s having too much stuffed up his arse on his own to worry about what others do with theirs.

Remus sits and finds a place halfway down the page in front of him, looks about to start, and then suddenly turns to Sirius with an almost sheepish expression. “If you don’t mind, we’re going to be speaking Russian to one another. Changes are easier to make on my end that way, etcetera.”

“By all means; just here to read,” Sirius says, opening his manuscript up to the same page as Remus and setting in to read along. He supposes he’ll just turn the page when Remus turns the page, keep up appearances—

Aleksei says something to Remus at a quick clip, and from the corner of his eye Sirius catches how Remus suddenly stiffens. His stomach curdles with the quiet rage of a sentinel as he keeps his eyes glued on the page before him. _Don’t interfere, you ponce, he could have just said something offensive about books._ Remus’ response is just as rapid, audibly wrestling to cover tonal barbs Sirius could have sensed in the man’s voice in any language in the world. Aleksei laughs a low, rich laugh full of pride like ichor, and Sirius chances a look at Remus—lips pressed ever the slightest bit tighter, right hand beneath the table and out of the author’s view balled into a vicious, white-knuckled fist. Sirius burns with the desire to make a dramatic exit with him; _no wonder he comes home so stressed if he’s reduced to this within minutes every day._

“Mr. Black,” Aleksei says smoothly, and Sirius looks at him prepared to fire back a volley of well-picked insults if the bastard invites it. “What else beyond my book might bring you to this sad little port town?”

Remus looks up as Sirius notices those auspicious fingers tighten around the quill in his hand. “Aleksei, _eto ne to, chto my zdes' ob—”_

"Nonsense, Remus, I'm only trying to get more information to help your companion do well on his exam. This is very important, is it not?"

"If you would rather waste time talking of things that aren't your book, then—“

"But this does have to do with my book, these are my theories. Just because we are not pointing out flaws does not mean we are not working," Aleksei says smoothly, that blasted corner of his mouth twitching upwards again. Sirius has the distinct feeling that he's watching months of contention come to a head. He doesn't enjoy the feeling of being a catalyst; this is clearly a power play, one that's been brewing between two headstrong personalities for far too long.

"If there are more important things to take care of, I'm happy to just observe," Sirius insists, hoping to ease some of the tension. Aleksei waves a hand flippantly and Sirius can almost feel the snarl he knows Remus is suppressing.

"My editor's _shlyukha_ is plenty important—“

Remus suddenly snaps out a harsh-sounding string of Russian, apparently smacking of admonishment and command as Aleksei's brow tightens and he eases into a straighter sit. The author responds with an equally steely tone before Remus interrupts him in another volley of words like quicksilver, eyes afire with his lip curled up in fury like the wolf in his veins licking to the surface for a flash. Aleksei says nothing, staring him down across the table. Sirius desperately wishes he could understand what they just said, looking surreptitiously between the two of them as the tense silence stretches on through several soft ticks of the clock mounted on the north wall. 

"Apologies, Mr. Black," Aleksei says in a softer voice, reined like a Horntail on a single link of chains. The possibility of it being anything close to genuine is ruined by the fact he keeps his cold stare trained on Remus, but Sirius wisely chooses not to comment on it. "I believe we should get started, yes?"

Remus takes another moment to stare down the sturdier man, his sharp green glare much colder and full of innate fury than Aleksei probably could have fathomed. "Yes," he finally says with threatening clarity, and he picks up a sharp red quill before launching into a long critique in curls of flawless, exacting Russian. Sirius sits back as if he had just weathered a warding blast in a duel, and he silently counts down the minutes on the large clock face across from his as the meeting stretches on into its beginning. Awash in the sounds of foreign speech, Sirius takes tumultuous comfort in Remus' voice. 

—

The ride back down the lift two hours later is deathly quiet, Alexei having chosen to apparate out of the room without so much as a farewell to either of them once Remus said something sharp and clipped in apparent conclusion and began to gather his manuscript and quills back into his briefcase. Sirius had watched Remus pack it all up with meticulous quickness, charm the leathern satchel down to pocket size, and throw on his coat with a violent shrug before following his seething stalk back into the cramped carriage. Now, Sirius can't quite find it in him to even wince as the lift trundles downwards back to the ground floor. 

The freight doors scrape open at their landing and Remus shoves the grate aside with a violent scowl carving his features. Sirius follows him out silently and doesn't speak up until they're several long strides away from the building, back outside to the threatening grey of Skegness. 

"Do you want to—“

"Right now all I want is a drink," Remus snaps, still walking as if his heels are on fire. "I want a very stiff drink and a hot meal."

"Alright," Sirius suggests with terse efficiency, "there's a wizarding pub near the pierhead I passed the other day." He tries to subdue the annoyance making his molars hum, and Remus stops with a huff and extends an arm for him to Lead The Way, Pads. Sirius takes a moment of pause to look at Remus purposefully and make him meet their gazes after a moment. Remus heaves a tight sigh. 

"I'll explain once we're seated somewhere quiet with a fucking Firewhiskey in front of me," he says quickly. Sirius clenches his jaw and jams his hands in his pockets, letting tension roll off of him like the tide as they make their wordless way toward the beach.

The pub is actually open now, to Sirius' relief and his own eagerness for a meal when he hears his stomach lurch in a rumble. He holds the door open for Remus, who enters like a gale and whips his scarf off in the same motion as his coat. 

"Welcome, lads," the scratch-voice wizard behind the bar calls, hand raised in greeting. Remus responds with a hand as well, beelining for a small booth in an empty back corner, and Sirius throws out a genial "Ta, mate," before following him.

"I'll order," Sirius says when they reach the table and move to hang their coats on hooks beside their seats.

"Double Firewhiskey and whatever stew they've got," Remus says. Sirius makes to turn back to the bar, but he's stopped for a moment by a soft clasp around his fingers—brief, barely there. There's only a smattering of locals in the pub, nobody has paid them the slightest attention, and Sirius feels in the touch a sort of release of keeping up false appearances. He returns the squeeze and wishes he had enough reckless abandon to lean in and kiss Remus in public as well.

The barkeep slides the double and a tall pint of ale across the counter, from which Sirius sips off the head as he waits for the gruff, bearded man to return from the kitchen with two bowls of stew. When Sirius makes his way back to the table, floating their food and Remus' drink to their seats with his pint and wand in hand, Remus looks blessedly more relaxed. 

"Thank you," He sighs, immediately tipping back a deep sip of Firewhiskey and curling his lips against his teeth for its bite before tucking into a deep spoonful of beef stew. Sirius takes up his spoon as well, eats for a silent minute, decides he's about to burst from general anxiousness, and sits back to square his eyes on Remus. 

"What's got you, Moony?" Sirius asks softly, resisting the urge to reach across the table and take his hand. Remus goes through two more swallows of stew and another sip of liquor before he leans back with a weary set to his jaw and looks Sirius' straight in the eye. 

"That bastard was calling me every slur in the book for two hours straight, trying to get a rise out of me while I pulled teeth to work on _his_ book," he says plainly, not flinching when Sirius feels his inside light up suddenly with righteous, furious fire; he's sure his flaring nostrils and tightening eyes are clear to Remus. "Right from the fucking get-go. He wanted fodder. When he was talking to you at the beginning, remember when he called you my _shlyukha?_ That's Russian for ‘whore.’"

Sirius sees red and just barely keeps from smashing something, settling for letting his grip go white on the edge of the table. "Why didn't you _say something—”_

"Because I didn't want to get us in hot water, Sirius. He's an opinionated man, and lots of societies outside of ours are as well. He's said some explosive, off-hand things about people like us in meetings before. He's read me like a book." Remus' eyes are deep with solemn gravity, his fingers stilled on the rim of his glass like leaves on the surface of an eddying lake. "I refuse to say anything outright one way or another, but he knows. It's easier to just let it come to pass and barrel forward—I would rather be berated by one of Europe's forthcoming Defense practitioners for being a Mary instead of the lunar option."

"So you let him shit on you, while I just sat there and did nothing?" Sirius hisses. His breath is coming quickly, his insides clenching and unclenching like a fist as he remembers how tensely Remus had held himself and how violently some of his speech had come out opposite the smoother cadences of Aleksei's. It hadn't just been frustration, it had been outright self-defense. Sirius feels utterly undercut.

"What could you have done, Pads?" Remus says gently, touching his knee with quiet tenderness under the cover of the tabletop. "Nothing would have made him quit. It's a matter of ideology. Can't be changed with a couple well-placed hexes and a gob of spit." He removes his hold, sips at the Firewhiskey again, rakes a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. "It's neither here nor there any longer anyways, I told him the executives will see to it that his book is reassigned. There's a clause in our contracts about general discrimination that loopholes quite neatly into accidentally covering homosexuality. I'll get a bit of a severance fee to line the pockets until my next project."

Remus quirks a half-triumphant little smile, and although Sirius still feels like his guts are smoldering with ire he returns it in kind. He has to remind himself sometimes that Remus is so indomitably strong, doesn't need any sort of protection at all. But it doesn't change the fact that he wants to guard the man he loves more than himself from any rank of pain or stress—but it helps to remember in moments he needs it most. "You know I'd never let you worry about money though—”

"I know, Sirius, it's just a principle of pride to fine the ruddy shit," Remus says through a pearly little chuckle. Sirius eats a couple more spoonfuls of the stew—nectar of the gods in this terrible weather, bringing the glow back into his blood and all that—as Remus does the same. 

"At least we got to have lunch," Sirius hazards, taking his own moment to stroke a thumb across Remus' knee. He receives a subdued but painfully radiant smile in return. 

"At least we got to have lunch," Remus repeats with contentment, meeting their fingers in the nameless shadows under the table with a touch that feels like sun through clouds.

—

That evening, their twining together in their shoebox of a room is sweeter for the stress of necessary release. Sirius buries his fingers in Remus’ hair, gripping with gentle insistence at the root to coax out a lovely sound of encouragement from between the lips he’s covered with a hungry kiss.

“Despite all the bullshit,” Sirius breathes, easing Remus’ head to the side ever so slightly to kiss him feather-light up the column of his neck, “I do love to hear you speak in foreign languages.”

“Were it not for said bullshit, my plan was to not even make it to lunch,” Remus replies, voice worn thin through the mounting tension of pleasure and breaking with a raw gasp when Sirius reaches between them impatiently to stroke once, slow and fully. “I would have dragged you back here to fuck you senseless instead.”

Sirius chuckles low in his chest, the sound sitting rooted just beside his heartbeat where his adoration of Remus has lived for so many years. “Never too late for that,” he hums as he strings Remus along with another slow, indolent touch. Through the dark, he sees Remus’ eyes alight with his favorite mix of arousal and affection before they dive back into a curling, fervent kiss. _This_ is one of the capital reasons he was glad he came along for the poor excuse for a holiday.

Bringing Remus along over crests of ecstasy, nearer to the ultimate relief Sirius could offer, is a holy fucking gift. Sirius knows he’ll always adore this, always revel in the sounds and shapes of Remus as he twists and turns toward finality, no matter what they ever come to face either together or apart.

“Fuck, I— _fuck,_ Sirius, part of me wants you to finish me but the other part wants to draw it out,” Remus says through a soft groan, his hands gripping Sirius’ shoulders hard as his hips cant shallowly along with the rhythm of Sirius’ hand.

“Am I allowed to vote?” Sirius murmurs, nipping at the shell of Remus’ ear as he bites out an airy affirmative. Sirius enjoys the soft burn in the pit of his belly as he plants a honey-rich kiss to Remus’ lips, then throat, then chest, keeps moving down until his intent is clear and Remus curses with breathless encouragement as Sirius closes his lips around him.

“Man alive, Sirius,” Remus gasps out, “ _Oh,_ I love you.”

Several minutes later, when they’re both sated and sweating, charmed clean with little need for the flimsy inn sheets until their skin cools off, Sirius watches the razor-thin light of the moon slice through their sliver of a window and illuminate the planes of Remus’ face as he begins drifting off.

“Remus?” Sirius murmurs softly. Remus doesn't open his eyes, but he tilts his face slightly to face Sirius with a sleepy, inquisitive sound. Sirius’ heart swells. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, you know.” The statement seems to weave itself from impatient strands of purpose, knitting themselves together like a hapless braid. Were it not for the post-coital fog of contentment, he would have been marginally mortified.

“‘Ve know that since we were sixteen,” Remus mumbles, eyes still shut as his right hand gropes out to land in a clumsy hold with Sirius’ own. “Four months after you snogged me. Nail in the coffin. Dead in the water. You’ve been it for a lonnnnng time, love.”

Sirius doesn’t think he’ll be able to say anything without crying if the threatening burn behind his eyes is to be trusted, so he settled for kissing Remus on the forehead. This elicits a pleased sigh from Remus, and Sirius watches him in the thin shaft of hazed, yellow moonlight until his breathing slows and the only conscious company left is the steady beating of his own overflowing heart.

—

Oversleeping was a talent that used to land Sirius in a hell of a lot of trouble, but he had managed to mostly train himself out of it by the time he was halfway through sixth year. However, when his mind reverts to holiday timings, he tends to revert. Today is a prime example of delicious reversion.

Blinking in the joke of light struggling through clouds, high enough in the sky that it’s clearly past ten o’ clock, Sirius turns to his side to see Remus’ edge of the bed empty. A little scrap of parchment sits on top of his pillow, and Sirius swipes at his eyes to clear the bleariness of fresh sleep before he can discern the fussy handwriting that has always looked exactly as Remus’ voice sounds.

_Love,_

_One last meeting!  
_ _Try not to go dancing naked in the streets without me.  
_ _I’ll be finished by three, then we Floo home to order curry and fall asleep on the sofa.  
_ _Until then, try not to be dissolved by more rain._

_STAY STRONG._

_—R_

Sirius smiles vaguely at the note, folding it up and rolling to his other side to tuck it into his suitcase. It’s been a fine week, save for the episode with Alexei. The day after that Remus was roped into a couple extra meetings with representatives from the publishing house to discuss who would take the book going forward and some such other protocol he was loathe to explain the paperwork-y details of, and blessedly today is the final day of Remus Doing Business Things. Sirius could nearly melt from eagerness to return home to their flat.

The entirety of yesterday afternoon, between another walk through town and a jaunt along the beach to give the white noise in his brain some company with the hiss of the tide, Sirius had found his mind occupied with the sleepy exchange of truths he’d shared with Remus the night before. If his calculations are anywhere close to correct, Remus has been thinking of Sirius in far-less-than-casual terms for just under seven years. It baffles Sirius to try and think that far back—he’s only just begun to feel settled in his own bones enough to admit, out loud, that losing Remus in any way would be like ripping out his own _soul_. Remus has been stewing on this for nearly another whole enrollment at Hogwarts. It’s baffling.

To think that Remus had played it all so close to his chest, to think he had let so many things go unsaid, it would have driven Sirius absolutely mad. Fuck, it’s _already_ driving him mad and he’s only been turning the stones of the concept around in his brain for two days. He supposes, as he stares up at the hairline crack in the ceiling above him, that all the dancing around Them for so long—on either of their ends of blame—came from fear. Remus, for fear he might be found out or fall apart and leave another heart bereft. Sirius, for fear he might have scared Remus away for the magnitude of his feelings.

“Fucking bloody idiots, that’s what,” Sirius murmurs to himself. He thinks there ought to be something he should do that could solidify all this before one of them retreats back into the squalid barracks of uncertainty, something to tide over both of their stupid subconsciouses until both men get better at communicating wholly and completely.

The thought hits him like a ton of bludgers. As Sirius rockets from the mattress, checks his watch, and dives into a pair of trousers— _You’ve got an hour, Black, make it count_ —, he hopes that this might help spell the end of an age of anxiety.

—

When the blessed and gentle smell of the Basingstoke flat hits Sirius before anything else, he collapses out of the hearth in grateful weakness.

“Merlin a-flight, home!” he cries, sprawling his arms out against the hardwood with his cheek pressed to its cool woodgrain. Remus beelines for the sofa, drops his suitcase beside it, and flops face-down into the pillows with a long, creaking moan.

“I never want to leave this flat again,” he deadpans into the pillows, muffling his voice like packed snowfall. Sirius drags himself up off the floor and crawls to the foot of the couch, sitting up beside Remus’ waist and stretching his legs out before him.

“If it’s never again, it will be too soon,” Sirius agrees. Remus replies with an unidentifiable grunt before throwing himself onto his back with a twelve-ton sigh that barrels from his lungs like a hurricane. They sit in silence for several minutes, enjoying the stillness and the general hum of familiar life around them. Sirius remembers with amplifying clarity the heaviness weighing in the pit of his insides as if he carried a boulder with him instead of the truth of his last purchase in Skegness. He clears his throat.

"Remus," Sirius says, hearing a quiver in he voice that he hopes isn't half as evident on the outside as it is ringing in his skull. 

"Hmm?" Remus is still flat on his back, eyes closed with his face tipped up to the ceiling; the picture of contentment. Sirius wills his heartbeat to still, _Merlin corked, it isn't like this will massively change anything,_ and yet as Sirius slides his hand secretively into his pocket, runs a touch across the tiny velveteen pouch inside, he can't find it in his mind to believe his own feelings. 

"Thanks, for taking me along," Sirius says, stark and slightly awkward in the silence of the sitting room. Remus snorts good-naturedly, his eyes still shut as he reaches out to twist a finger through a lock of Sirius' hair. 

"I should be the one thanking you for coming with, I would have died from boredom or frustration without you to come back to at the end of the day."

"Ahh, you dramatic nancy," Sirius murmurs, catching Remus's hand with his own and pressing a kiss to the back of it. Remus twists onto his side, stretched long across the couch, and opens his eyes to smile serenely down at Sirius. Sirius' heart swells and his words dry up, apparently accompanied by a stutter in the light in his eyes as Remus' brow furrows. 

"Are you alright? Did you catch a cold in all that shit weather?" Sirius has to laugh at the concern lacing those words, laughter like a burst of starlings up through a shaft of sun in a crumbling roof. 

"No, I'm fine, love." He reaches into his pocket again and surreptitiously draws out the little pouch, rolling its soft corner between his thumb and forefinger with vague preoccupation. "I'm fine."

"I should hope so," Remus replies, rolling to his back again and clasping his hands across his midsection. He sighs heavily to say through a yawn, "Christ and Morgana, I could sleep until the sun goes out."

"A grand idea, but—before you do," Sirius blurts, words flying leagues ahead of his thoughts, Shit, he has to meet the single opened eye that Remus turns to him—inquisitive. Sirius shifts to kneel, face him, swallow thickly around an idea he must dredge up to the surface now or let fester until it drives him mad. 

"I love you," Sirius states, lets it hang in the air as Remus waits patiently for him to continue, both eyes open now in patient apprehension. “And—as ridiculous and some of the past week was, it assured me how _much_ I love you. Which is almost—almost too much for me to really understand sometimes."

"Feeling's mutual, Pads, you're wonderful," Remus says with a little half-smile, kissing Sirius gently with a press of his lips limned with benign confusion. "What's on your mind then?"

Sirius exhales a short clip of humorless laughter, a spasmodic release of nerves, resting the maroon-colored pouch between them. _Platinum would be capital,_ he remembers telling the old man behind the counter back in Skegness, too polite to correct such eager salesmanship when he had gone about how much _the lucky lady_ would love the simple little twists of metal he had placed on the counter for Sirius to peruse. 

"Don't balk now, hear me out," Sirius says, which makes Remus furrow his brow warily and look at him askance. He still hadn't noticed the gift between Sirius fingers.

"Is this going to be a kinky sex thing? Because last time was fine, just—“

"Merlin, Moony, if I can't say this all at once I'm going to cock it up." The strength in Sirius's voice surprises the both of them, and so after a beat of silence he amends it with a soft "...Please."

"Go on then," Remus says gently, sitting back into the arm of the sofa with measured expectance. Sirius draws a deep breath and subtly slides open the tiny drawstring on the velvet bag. 

"I found a little shop yesterday and bought something you might think is a bit rash," he explains, clinging to their eye contact to keep his pulse from hammering out of his veins like a parade of unruly horses. "This isn't a joke, I swear, and—and it doesn't have to mean very much if you don't want it to, but I want you to have it. And decide for yourself how—what it means." He glances down at his hands, hooked index finger pausing nestled in the fabric with two lovely coils of gleaming platinum sitting on it like perched birds. "It can have as much or as little ceremony and pomp as you want, but you at least deserve the weight of the promise behind it, Remus."

Sirius bites down hard on his body's cowardly resistance to the final move, holding the two rings out plainly in his open hand between them. Remus gasps like a little rush of wind, hands flying to cover his mouth instinctually as his eyes flicker between the rings and Sirius' own gaze. Sirius ignores the metallic screeching of his heart to try and keep his expression inviting, soft, slightly apologetic. 

"I know we can't rightly get married, nor do I think you would really want that—“

"You bloody fucking utter _git,_ I don't care about tradition," Remus interrupts bodily, staring fully and wide-eyed now down at the rings in Sirius' hand that had begun to shake slightly. "You bought me a _ring."_

"I bought you a ring," Sirius agrees, a small smile finally finding its way to his lips. 

“I—I never even let myself daydream about this, Sirius, not even when I was still snogging girls," Remus continued, breathless. "I was sure I would never—never find somebody who—or get old enough for—to—oh, fucking hell, Sirius, _you bought me a ring,"_ and with a hammer stroke of his heart that hits like a tolling bell, Sirius sees tears welling up in Remus' eyes. He hasn't seen Remus cry since Frank and Alice died, and never in his entire life of knowing the man from happiness. It tugs at his guts like ardent insistence. 

"Do you want to put one on?"

"Yes," Remus says immediately, his voice choked like a stopped-up bottleneck as he holds out his left hand. Sirius takes one between his fingers, holds the other to his palm with a partial fist, and slides it onto Remus' fourth finger. Sirius' heart flutters with an emotion that feels like a foreign and newly-minted facet of love. They both stare at the ring on Remus' hand for a moment, the air around them suspended in time. 

"I can charm it to fit, but I think it—“

"Fits perfectly," Remus finishes for Sirius, openly swiping tears from his cheeks when Sirius looks up at him with such a weight of affection that it nearly burns this throat. Remus notices the stare and looks up, gesturing defiantly at Sirius' hand. "Well put yours on, don't just let me be the only blubbering idiot here."

Sirius chuckles, tenuous and wild and bright, as he holds his ring out for Remus to take. Those slender fingers, all sorts of glorious and made for kissing pages, close gently in a hold around Sirius' own—rougher around their edges, paler but calloused and strong in a different way, wrought from working in twists of machinery. The ring is warm from its pouch and Sirius’ hands as it slides down his finger, indeed also fitting perfectly where Remus nestles it. He looks up at the man he loves more than life itself and sees the whole of time in the tear-lined and love-worn depths of those green eyes. 

"I don't have any vows beyond the fact that I will be yours until I die, and even then," Remus murmurs, which breaks the last questionable thread of emotional resolve left in Sirius' guts as he feels his own face contract with the swell of the happiest tears he's ever cried. 

"Fuck, Moony, even your rush-job words are prettier than my best," Sirius says through a shallow little sob, sniffling deeply as he gathers Remus into a haphazard, clinging embrace. He closes his eyes, inhaling the gorgeous scent of forever in the crook of Remus' shoulder."You've got me as long as you want me," he whispers there.

"I want you as long as there's anything _left_ of you want," Remus breathes, “I adore you.”

There are countless things that Sirius could say in response, hundreds upon thousands of words in several different languages that could encapsulate everything that Remus means to him. There are spells that Sirius could cast, records he could play, food he could cook that would be more eloquent still than any words he might dream of dredging up. But in the comfort of their flat, this homecoming that feels like an inner world finally coming to a steady and much-needed rest, Sirius redoubles his embrace and knows the only promise worth repeating has already been fit onto Remus’ ring finger.

 

— _fin_ —


End file.
